GB1996 - Lie down with her

You settle down comfortably beside Stef, who is on her side, looking at you.

“You’re a good friend,” she says.

“I am pretty great,” you agree.

She keeps looking.

“What?” you say.

“Hard not to want to kiss you right now,” she says.

That gets you. You shift uncomfortably, then laugh quietly.

“You’re sweet,” you say. “Go to sleep.”

“Just a little one. On the cheek,” Stef says.

You sigh. “OK.”

Snickering, she wiggles closer. You close your eyes and offer up your face. She pecks your cheek playfully.

You open your eyes and look down to see her hand holding yours, fingers interlaced, on your tummy. Her skin looks pale compared to yours. Her skin is so much softer than yours as well.

“I can go to sleep now,” she says.

You think about pulling your hand away, but decide against it. With the warmth of her body close beside you, but not touching… too much, you drift off.

That’s where the good stuff ends. Reality means… consequences.

You are spared any awkwardness that might have been possible when you wake up because in the light of morning, you remember that you are in your mother’s bed and the room smells like you imagine a brothel does. It’s also morning. Your mom should’ve been back around four in the morning if she was doing one of those late shifts at the clinic.

There is approximately a zero percent chance that she didn’t come home and find you and Stef like this.

That’s confirmed for you after Stef leaves.

As though by magic, your mom rings the doorbell before coming inside. You know how fucked you are, so you don’t try to fight it.

“Where’d you go? You must have been really close,” you say.

“I was next door,” she says tiredly. This is bad. She’s not yelling. That means she’s really mad.

“You know Mary’s mom?”

“Yes. I do. Shut up and sit down.”

Here it is. You sit down in the kitchen and she does as well. After a long, painful moment, she begins to count on her fingers.

“It bothers me that it was my room,” she says.

“That’s fair.”

She gives you a warning look. You shut up.

“It bothers me that this is all happening at once. My car. This. Your shitty grades that are going to stop you from graduating. You’re eighteen, Carla. I’m not going to treat you like a kid, but you are not acting like an adult,” she says frankly.

This is somehow more devastating than if she chewed your ass like she has a few times in the past. Usually for breaking curfew.

“Carla. Look at me.”

You have been avoiding eye contact. You face her.

“Carla, I’m about to teach you a grownup skill. It’s very important. Maybe the most important thing about being an adult, which you’re about to be. I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen, and you’re going to go make it happen without fighting me, without complaining, and without some convenient thing coming along to stop you. This is a life skill. Shutting up and doing what you have to do. Here’s what that is. You’re going to take a shower. Put on a lot of deodorant. And go to school. Then you’re going to come home and do all the laundry, starting with the sheets, and whatever it takes to make sure that my room is clean and not smelling like… you do right now. Then you’re going to start studying, and you’re not going to stop until you graduate. I’ve already had to appeal your attendance and grades to the school board once. I’m not doing it again. And if you don’t graduate on time, you’re going to have bigger problems than me walking in on… that.” She takes a deep breath. That was a lot. She stares at you without blinking. “Although I guess it was cute that you were holding hands with her.”

“We weren’t holding hands,” you blurt out.

“Carla, I saw you.”

“You didn’t see that,” you add, looking away.

“Not my problem. Carla, I don’t mind letting you live here as long as you’re on track and doing something useful, but if you shoot yourself in the foot here and blow it with your credits because you’d rather chase girls than open a book… I won’t enable that. Do you understand?”

You nod.

“Go. Go to school,” she says, getting up and leaving the kitchen.

You sit there for a moment, relieved and devastated at the same time. Nothing that your mom said is unfair, but it still hurts to have her stomp all over your denial like that. She’s right.

For a moment longer you sit there, letting reality seep into your pores. Then you push to your feet and do what your mom ordered. You shower, dress, get your stuff together and head to school.

You’re late. By the time you get there, everyone is inside and first hour has already begun. You stand outside in the warm, spring morning sunshine, looking up at the big, brick building. It figures that you would start to look at this building a bit differently only at the tail end of your senior year. You aren’t sure which realization has you thrown this way: that adulthood has come for you, or that your mother’s opinion means more to you than you thought.

You are not a mama’s girl at all, but you don’t like seeing her that disappointed. A little disappointed is funny. This morning was rough. It’s not about the bed. Your mom gets maddest when she worries about you.

She is seriously worried, and she’s not wrong. You need to worry too. After all, you didn’t study last night. Now you’re going to fail your tests today, and graduation will be that much more difficult.

You have to make a choice. No matter how difficult it is, you have to make graduating your priority. You see two ways to make that reality.

You can shut down your social life completely, finally give Kris your full attention, and study. This will allow you to graduate and have the summer to do with as you please.

Or you can turn to Lily. Not for sex, for help. If you go to work for CCL, you’ll have a whole house of college girls to tutor you… but even you, an idiot, know that a commitment of any kind of CCL cannot be made lightly. On top of that, Lily owns you. This will be to your advantage if you end up going the college route, but in the meantime, CCL will dominate your life and you will lose a huge amount of control.

You can’t get your grades up on your own.

Turn to Kris?

Or to Lily?